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Wednesday, 7 March 2012

Fantasy Kindle

I have had a fairly unproductive day, which entirely normal because it is Shitty Wednesday, the day that ends for all practical purposes at 1h30 when I must remove the children from the gulag and set them off on their circuit of, ahem, improving activities, which I do with total good humour, of course, especially on a day like today when it is enhanced by sleet. Mmmmm, sleet. Satan made a special point of sitting out in it to make me feel bad. Or maybe he just likes the feel of sleet on his gigantic furry back? It is Not All About Me.

I am uncomfortably aware that in the time it has taken my Twitter stream to write 43 new books and 8900 articles, go on the telly and the radio and get 2893 new important and influential jobs, I have bought a cucumber and some dog shit bags, written 148 bad words, and nagged approximately 7 people until they hate me. I also lay on the floor for a while and consumed 3 Nurofen Plus (my back is buggered, I think from squirming away from the dentist). Just think, if I gave up Twitter I wouldn't know about all the people out there doing stuff and I could maintain the fiction that my days contain a perfectly reasonable quantity of achievement. Not to mention all the time I would save not reading about brilliant stuff other people have done might actually come in handy for, you know, achieving stuff. Anyway. We all knew that already, didn't we. First world problems, volume 800000.

In better news, I have been amusing myself with a new form of modern parlour game: it is called "pretend you are loading an imaginary Kindle for members of your family'.

Family Member 1

Bad Things: A Monograph

Anthrax for Dummies

Enormously Big Numbers and The Men Who Love Them

Some Really Horrible Periods in History In Eyeball-Rupturing Detail

When No One Understands You: How to Communicate With Idiots

The Grave Scenarios Handbook

Further Grave Scenarios

Family Member 2

A Depressing Abstract Idea Deconstructed by Mary Midgley or Similar

Огромный, темный девятнадцатого века русская вещь

Densely Printed Monograph That Was Well Reviewed in Le Monde Diplomatique.

100 Ways With A Bag of Sainsbury's Budget Lentils

Multi-Volume Biography of Someone You Have Never Heard Of But Undoubtedly Should Have

Etwas schräg, in einem Heinrich-Böll-Novelle bezeichnet.

Family Member 3

Who Moved (All) My Stuff? A Memoir of Confusion

How To Fake It Convincingly When The Chips Are Down

The Minimum Effort Handbook

World of Lizards

The Improbable Encyclopaedia of Made Up Scientific "Facts"

101 Activities Without Leaving Your Pyjamas

A Primer of Plausible Duplicity

Big Eyed Japanese Cartoons About Stuff Adults Don't Get

Family Member 4

Stationery: A Love Affair

All the Moustaches, Ever

The Biscuit Encyclopaedia

An A-Z of Secrecy

The Best Places for Hiding Stuff in Western Europe and beyond

Brains That Remember Too Much

Coffee Table Facial Hair

A Brief History of Snacks

Family Member 5

Scandinavian Misery 1-300

People in Islington having Marital Issues

Murder Mysteries With A Greater Emphasis on Food Than Plot

Grotesque Forensic Procedurals

Middlebrow Literary Fiction Probably Recommended in the Guardian or Similar

History With Loads of Anecdotes Not The Dry Kind With Battles And Queen Anne's Governments

Brilliant lists. You must have some interesting family members. Off the top of my head, a few books I'd put on various family members kindles would be:

OCD for Dummies.Your Bad Dog and YouThe 21st Century Guide to Interstate TravelMoney Laundering for Complete IdiotsSeaweed: Fuel of the FutureKama Sutra of Sleeping PositionsDIY Carpentry for the Irresponsible Homeowner

Waffle, have you read Michael Ondaatje's Elimination Dance? Your post reminded me of that poem.My favourite elimination is "Anyone who has testified as a character witness for a dog in a court of law"But I thought you might like "Men who have never touched a whippet".